Known in the art is an internal combustion engine provided with a variable valve timing mechanism able to control the closing timing of an intake valve, a variable compression ratio mechanism able to change a mechanical compression ratio, an intake air amount detector for detecting the amount of intake air fed to the intake passage from the outside air, and a fuel injector for feeding fuel to the intake passage, wherein the fuel injection amount from the fuel injector is controlled so that the air-fuel ratio becomes the stoichiometric air-fuel ratio based on the amount of intake air detected by the intake air amount detector, the lower the engine load, the greater the mechanical compression ratio, and the closing timing of the intake valve becomes retarded from suction bottom dead center toward compression top dead center (for example, see Japanese Patent Publication No. 2007-303423A).